Great Saturday

Today is Great Saturday or Holy Saturday, the day between Jesus' death and his resurrection. In the Church, it's celebrated with watchful expectation and funeral hymns. This is the day that our family usually dyes eggs. Eggs universally symbolize birth and potential. For Christians at Easter eggs stand for hope and spiritual rebirth.

Agenda Today: 
1. Make natural egg dyes
2. Make cascaróne eggs
3. Dye pysanky eggs

1. Make natural egg dyes:

Tumeric = gold, onion skins = red-orange, red cabbage = moss green.

Eggs are part of the spring celebrations of people all over the world. It is a fact of science that bird eggs are laid only after the eye of the female bird is stimulated by more than twelve hours of light per day, which doesn’t happen until springtime approaches. The people of long ago noticed the connection between eggs and warmer days, and so the egg became a symbol of spring. 

Folks began to color and pattern eggs, and trade them during their spring festivals. They may have thought that eggs were a charm that helped the sun to grow warmer.

I have three favorite natural egg dyes, made with onion skins, red cabbage, and turmeric. 

Ingredients: 

• 2 c. dried onion skins (collect from the bottom of store onion bins)
• 1/2 red cabbage
• 2 Tbsp. turmeric
• 1 tsp. alum
• 2 Tbsp. vinegar
• raw eggs

1. Start three pots of water boiling, and add the onion skins to one, the red cabbage (chopped up a bit) to another and about 2 Tbsp. of turmeric to the third.

2. After the pots boil for an hour, add 1 tsp. alum to the cabbage, and 1 Tbsp. vinegar to the other two.

3. Now you can add eggs and simmer for 20 minutes.

2. Make cascaróne eggs: 

Mexican children make a large number of cascarónes at Carnival, Easter, and also at birthdays and weddings. These confetti-filled eggs are easy to make, and then you sneak up on someone, holding a cascaróne hidden in your hand, and smash it (gently) on your victim’s head like a miniature piñata!

To see how to make these visit my Dragonfly Studio web page.

3. Dye pysanky eggs: 

In Eastern Europe eggs are decorated with the wax resist method. Very complex designs are created with many layers of wax and dye. People give pysanky to friends at Easter as a good-luck token. 

I try to make a new pysanky each year to hang on my egg tree. 

Supplies: eggs (check for cracks), vinegar, Ukrainian egg dyes, small candle, a large potato, a large bent spoon, beeswax, pencils, paper, old paint brush, a finishing nail, kitska (optional), paper towels, large candle, beads, string, scissors, big needles

My potato and spoon wax-melting system.

1- Warm eggs to room temperature and clean with diluted vinegar- dab dry without rubbing. Also mix up the Ukrainian egg dyes as directed.

2- Set up half a potato with a bent spoon (this an old-fashioned way to heat wax that I like!) 

Put a candle under the spoon and add some bits of dark beeswax- I use shavings from the end of a beeswax candle; beeswax sticks best to the egg, and dark beeswax is easiest to see as you apply it.

Using a brush

3-  Experiment with the waxing technique on an egg: Light the candle and melt the wax (You may need to adjust the height of the spoon to get the wax to melt). 

Use a brush or the head of a finishing nail (or a kitska) to apply wax to the egg.

Using a kitska.

The wax must be hot to stick, but if it starts to smoke, swivel the potato to move the spoon off the heat.

4- After you get the hang of it, look at traditional designs and symbols in a book or online. Here is one helpful site. Draw ideas on paper and plan the colors.

• Designs are usually symmetrical. 
• You can segment the egg with pencil (use rubber bands to draw straight circles). 
• As you plan the colors, remember they will mix- so a yellow egg dyed blue may end up greenish, and a pink egg dyed blue may end up purple.

5- Begin by waxing all the white areas, and dye with the lightest color: Soak in a dye pot for 5-20 minutes.

Dry the egg on a paper towel, wax again, and dye again- until all the colors are applied.

6- Remove wax: Hold the egg at the side of a candle flame and wipe clean.

7- Blow the egg out. Tie a bead to end of string, thread through egg, and tie a loop to hang.